I saw a first this week while in Beaufort, North Carolina. To those of you who know Beaufort, South Carolina, this is not that place. Nor is it pronounced the same. Beaufort, NC is pronounced like and  “BOW-fert” or “BOH-fert”. Beaufort, SC is pronounced like”BEW-fert.” Your grammar lesson for the day is now complete.

But I digress. We were eating lunch at an outside rooftop restaurant and I overheard the table next to us talking about the sun halo. I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about and finally looked up between the umbrellas and saw what they were talking about.

Okay –so it was so doggone bright out I just could not seem to get a good picture of the entire thing. But honestly – I don’t ever recall seeing this before.

According to the Farmers’ Almanac:

A Sun halo is caused by the refraction, reflection, and dispersion of light through ice particles suspended within thin, wispy, high altitude cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. As light passes through these hexagon-shaped ice crystals, it is bent at a 22° angle, creating a circular halo around the Sun. The prism effect of light passing through these six-sided ice crystals also separates the light into its various color frequencies, making the halo look like a very pale rainbow, with red on the inside and blue on the outside.

Farmers’ Almanac

Whatever they are they are very cool and this one was actually a double even though I never did manage to get a picture of the entire thing.

I did manage to get pictures of the umbrella. Sigh. But you get the idea. Who else has seen a sun halo? I thought it was pretty spectacular and it made my day even better by this sighting.

Let me know if you have ever seen this before and make sure to Comment for a Cause for Hospice of the Valley.